


Sabine/Ezra: The Plagueis Initiative

by lordhadrian



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Clones, F/M, Friendship/Love, Haunted Houses, Jedi, Jedi Knights, Mandalorian, Post-Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Sith, Sith Shenanigans, Star Wars References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 09:19:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12554244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordhadrian/pseuds/lordhadrian
Summary: Plagueis tries to copy Sidious' cloning scheme with a chosen subject of his own- Ezra Bridger.  But Sabine hunts for Plagueis' fortress withing the red clouds of the Blood Nebula, intent on rescuing Ezra from a horrible fate.  While the two heroes could never hope to defeat the Sith Lord in his dark palace, there is a power they possess that Plagueis can never conquer.....





	Sabine/Ezra: The Plagueis Initiative

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to try a Halloween type story, a touch of haunted mansion and Mad Scientist themes. And also make a Sabine/Ezra tale because I have not written for this pairing.
> 
> I know not everyone likes this pairing, and this story has some stretched logic, but I wanted to try it. I might have used a different couple or a different villain, but these characters fell into place, and I was feeling adventurous. Feel free to critique, or read and enjoy.

Sabine/Ezra: The Plagueis Initiative

 

Darth Plagueis was a towering figure to behold. He was ever more so a giant when he became enraged. And his rage knew no bounds after the betrayal by his ambitious Apprentice, Darth Sidious.

He hatched a scheme from his secret fortress in the Blood Nebula. The Nebula was a vast cloud of red space dust, a strange phenomenon that scared most space travelers into avoiding it. Which made it an excellent space for his floating Citadel. The Fortress was an old, gothic space station in the sanguine of cold space, it's aged copper piping lined the outside, sparse lights flickered from checkered levels of activity throughout. Once a beacon for a world of the Old Republic thousands of years ago, the world it orbited was long gone, and the station itself became forgotten in its Sargassan sea. The cold vacuum was a blessing, letting the galaxy continue in silence without hearing the choral sufferings of Plagueis' prisoners through the years. Lost souls that remained trapped, some say for a midichlorian eternity, as the Sith Lord experimented gruesomely on them for the secrets of eternal life. Some would call it damnation and Hell, but for the Sith it was a dedication to power and unnatural acts of survival.

"At last, I will return upon the Empire! At last, I will have my vengeance, my old apprentice!" Plagueis contemplated with a vicious smile. The Sith Lord took an elevator to his great lab. In it, a vast cloning mechanism that he stopped to admire, for he was already producing his own army to go after his wayward apprentice Sidious. The Mechanism was schemed and copied from another race hidden near the Rishi maze. The Kaminoans had thought of their technology as purely a business venture. Capitalism with DNA.

But Plagueis was a mad genius, and his scheme would bring ruin to fruition with this stolen technology. A Nightmare that was being realized by his prized prisoner, Ezra Bridger.

"You thought you killed me, Lord Sidious..." he walked by the vats and clone chambers, gliding his hand across the glass and metal "But I am the Lord of the Midichlorians! I am the ruler of ALL LIFE! And now, I will create new life!" he walked past the main chamber, where Ezra had been held.

The skilled young Jedi warrior had a fierce reputation, but a quiet tactic of deceit and combat bested him long enough to be chained to the bubbling furnaces and tubes of the infernal device. Plagueis smiled as he created more and more newborn humanoidal forms in hundreds of large pods that would become fully grown, mindless clones of Ezra.

"Whatever your plan is, you've just crossed line! My friends will stop you!" Ezra was weakened by the Dark auras Plagueis fused in the old Fortress, but he was not easily intimidated. The Sith Lord could still detect the anxiety of his circumstance

"I can taste your fear like a fine wine. It is a rare kind of fear, and you hide it very well. But I am a Sith, mercenary, and I can feel your trembling!"

Ezra stared him down "We'll see who's afraid if I ever get loose from these chains!" Plagueis, bored with the boy's threats, squeezes his hand in a Force choke to silence him. Bridger fell unconscious under the strain of resisting his captor while connected to the macabre machine.

Meanwhile, A lone ship traversed the blood storm of the Nebula. Ratchets of lightning struck through the clouds at random, but it did not deter Sabine, who hunted for the location she felt had housed her comrade. Plagueis had captured Ezra in a ruthless play for power across the galaxy. Sabine knew she might never return from this rescue mission, but donned her Mandolorian armor without hesitation. She was determined, and followed the trail of death the Sith Lord left behind. Ravaged worlds, worlds left in despair, and some haunted by the past presence of Plagueis, who used and discarded everyone and everything to make his revenge come to full countenance.

Her instincts and hard skills of hunting paid off, and she saw the red clouds part to reveal the ancient fortress. Searing bolts of electricity scorched about around the derelict fortress.

"Sporadic readings" she looked over the scans as she tried to find Ezra. She could read life signs, but details were fuzzy from the electric storm. Like shadows in a lit window, she could see forms, but she became apprehensive to whether they were human....or something more sinister. She pulled the ship up to a portal, locking onto it. The locking in was loud, echoing around her, like she was breaking the station open. She almost wondered if it echoed throughout the gothic castle. With creaking effort, the doors opened and she slowly crept into the bulk hall before her.

It was not completely dark, but the colors of the once bright station were dull from thousands of years of abandonment. There were enough shadows amidst the dull light to create nightmares for someone less than Mandolorian, less than what Sabine was. Her helmet shined a line ahead, and she avoided making any more loud noises.

But Plagueis, the Lord of Midichlorians, was aware of her presence. A minor nuisance, he summons his thralls. A dozen clones come forward from the darkness as he waves his hand "Dispatch the intruder!" he commands.

Each clone was in the likeness of Ezra, but their features were cold, blank, and very pale compared to his lively darker tone. They were ghoulish automatons, and obeyed the shadowy pale Sith. The monstrous clones moved swiftly in their cold gray imitation Mandolorian styled armor.

Sabine moved from chamber to hallway to despairingly dark chamber as she explored the death hulk.

She detected movement from the denizens and prepared for battle, but skillfully moved through the shadows. She pulled out a spray that confused and sensors that might detect her, making the search for her more difficult, though the hunting thralls made noises all around her. She remained alert. She watched in shadows, moving from corridor to corridor as the thralls made horrifying noises and searched for her.

She suddenly heard their screeches as they started to close in on her, their echoing boots hording from every direction in the long dark corridors. One reached out as she ran and tried to grab her.

Sabine gasped as she saw the perverted clone features of the thrall as it grappled her, face to face. It was like Ezra's face, but twisted, horrifying. It tried to kill her but she grabbed its hands. Using her skills, she kicked its head with tremendous force, severing its neck. The pale imitation thing fell, but more started to chase her. It became a running gun battle as she fired her pistols at the horde.

The terror of seeing the clones made her want to scream, scream for Ezra. But her discipline kept her focused, and her fighting reflexes kept her from being overwhelmed.

She jumped up to a vent and ripped the cover off, crawling away as the thralls fired their guns at her. She crawled until she could find a quiet corner to recover. She took a moment to breath, then check her tracking device on her wrist. "Ezra is close!" she whispered as she read his life signs. She crawled fast to the level of the station wherein he was held. She pushed her way from the vent into the cloning chamber.

The young Jedi was unconscious, but she quickly and silently moved over to him and tried unlock his bonds. "Wake up!" she whispered.

Ezra, still weary from the Sith Lord's attack, looked up at her in surprise "Is it you, Sabine? How did you-"

"Not so loud" She answered "I'll get you freed soon."

"No!" he stifled his horrified voice "You must get out of here! NOW!"

"Not without you!" she suddenly felt herself being pulled from him by a tremendous invisible force. She hovered in the air as Plagueis cackled "Such a pity....lovers united for such a brief time. You were almost successful, but I could taste your emotions from a far distance, Mandolorian! And now...." He crept up to her as she flailed helplessly "I will taste your fear!"

"You leave her alone!!" Ezra struggled to break free from the machine. Plagueis cackled at his efforts. At first. But the Sith underestimated his determination, and power. And his love for Sabine. He burst away from the cloning device. With tremendous effort, Ezra thrust his hands at the Sith, shoving him off his feet. The Sith Lord scowled and fired off lightning at the young Jedi. The initial blast launched him off his feet, knocking him back with scorched clothes and scarred hands.

"NO!!" Sabine stepped in between them as the Sith tried to attack again. Her dark saber absorbed his lightning blast, though it wore her down to hold back his powers. "Thralls! I want you to destroy this *girl!*, and restore the boy to his place in the machine! Young Ezra will bow to my will!!" Plagueis sneered.

Weakened, Sabine fell to her knees. "Sabine!" Ezra crawled to her and cradled her as the thralls surrounded them. The Clones of Ezra gave menacing stares at her, filled with the desire to obey their dark Master.

They crowded closer, ready to tear her apart, but Ezra cradled her close. "I'm sorry" he whispered "You shouldn't have come to get me. I cause so much trouble-"

"-You were worth saving" Sabine whispered back. They embraced tightly, waiting for the end.

They embraced for a long time until they both looked up. The Thralls had stopped. They watched. And suddenly, they remembered a memory locked away in their DNA.

"Fools!" Plagueis growled "I COMMAND YOU TO DESTROY HER!" Plagueis, in all his brilliance, had perfected cloning all too well. He could take a Jedi like Ezra, and duplicate his skills, his form, his power in the Force. But the Sith had also duplicated something in Ezra that was held so close to his heart it became a part of his very existence. His feelings for Sabine. Those feelings, since the day they first met, had grown stronger. The Thralls had been designed to mimic Ezra, down to the last midichlorian, and suddenly they started to remember Sabine in the same way as their originator.

"I won't let you be hurt" Ezra whispered, looking around "I think they know that".

The Thralls let this memory flood through them, and the love Ezra held within made them want to protect Sabine. After some hesitation, they turned on Plagueis. They open fired with weapons, or tried to claw at him. Some used their Force abilities on him. At first, Plagueis held them off with ease. His rage, however, could not be controlled.

"You are a cursed batch of freaks! How dare you strike at your master!" he roared.

Plagueis realized that more Thralls entered the chamber, more of them felt the hidden feelings for the girl he wished to kill. And they turned on him like an Ushered horde. The cracks in his control and power began to wane, though he seem to kill them by the dozens. The thralls fought with Ezra's Jedi tenacity and skills. He was so overwhelmed by their turning, he fell into his machinery while using his Force lightning on them, and the device of damnation would become his doom. Sparks fired around them, spreading like wildfire to other demented gothic machines.

Sabine and Ezra retreated from the chamber through the vents. They could hear the thralls throughout the station rebelling against their master as his power over them faltered. Hating their own imitation existence, the Thralls began destroying equipment, creating explosions, rebelling to protect the one they loved.

"The Clones are attacking their own base!" Sabine listened as they moved towards the portal to the ship.

"I wonder if Rex ever felt this way during the Clone Wars!" Ezra moved through the portal. More explosions echoed through the station as the Thralls sought to end the Hell Plagueis created.

"Hang on!" Sabine jumped into the pilot seat and punched the controls. Ezra strapped himself in the Co-pilot seat as they blasted away. Ezra sensed much fluctuation in the Force around the station, sensing chaos. He could not tell if Plagueis still lived. Sabine steadied the controls and took his hand, making him forget the Horrors of his captivity for a moment.

"Funny" he commented as they watched small fires glow in parts of the massive station "The damage doesn't so bad from here."

"Are you okay?" Sabine asked.

"I'm going to need time to recover" he felt "I was going to be used as a weapon by a Sith Lord....and those Clones....they deserved to be free. Not slaves"

"I think they might have realized that by freeing us....they could realize a freedom for themselves. They took matters into their own hands. Some will survive, and they will grow to become better. You gave them that when they were cloned. A chance to fight and be free." Sabine couldn't quite explain what had happened. But she follow her instincts based on the Ezra she knew and loved, and could tell that the Thralls, in the end, had more in common with Bridger than with the subservient status they were forced to endure.

Ezra held her hand. Still a bit shy and exhausted, he gave her a simple kiss on the cheek. He sta back in his chair and closed his eyes, letting Sabine's heart beat comfort his meditations as he drifted off to sleep.

Sabine kissed him back and watched over him as they escaped this haunted palace


End file.
